Today I went to the War Eagle Craft Show. I stopped selling my work at that show about 15 years ago, but I found that there were still some old friends around like Skip Cluff, a maker of sand cast jewelry, and pictured at left. Sand casting is a very old metal working technique in which the artist works with a sand medium, making direct impressions to form the mold, which can then be reshaped in making new molds after the metal is cast. It is important that old creative techniques be preserved, and they are largely preserved for future creative use in the hands of a small number of makers like Skip. Some of his work is shown below.

War Eagle is one of the oldest craft fairs in the U.S. and it is amazing to see the amount of energy involved. Personally, I am a craft snob. I prefer useful, highly crafted items which preserve creative tradition to the kinds of things that are quickly made, purely decorative and fill homes with senseless clutter, so with a few notable exceptions War Eagle was a disappointment to me. But shows like War Eagle do illustrate the compulsion that people have to use their hands in association with their intelligence. Unfortunately, the buying public is more interested in buying poorly-made, hand-crafted decorative objects than highly crafted beautiful and useful things. But, seeing old friends, a few craftsmen keeping old traditions alive, the beautiful day in the Ozarks, and time spent in the company of closest friends made a great day.